How we use a robot golfer to better understand the human golfer

Our MythBusters series was introduced to answer common-golfer questions: Does a higher tee really make the ball go farther? Do range balls really perform worse? Do layers of clothing affect swing speed and accuracy?

For many of these questions, we've sought answers through tests with real golfers. Those results have admittedly fallen short of definitive, but they have still provided useful insight into what really happens with actual golfers.

Some questions are best answered with a more scientific approach, and for that, we have turned to the Golf Laboratories robot, created by Golf Digest contributor Gene Parente. For 35 years, Parente’s robots have been the industry standard, used by major manufacturers as well as the USGA and R&A to test equipment. Remember that viral video of a robot making a hole-in-one on TPC Scottsdale's stadium hole or the Rory vs. The Robot video with the laundry machines on the range? Both feature Parente's robot.

The Golf Labs robot can simulate any golf shot, from Rory McIlroy’s 330-yard high draws or a weekend player’s banana slice. The machine can swing from 5 mph to 130 mph and can hit drivers, irons and wedges, creating perfectly straight shots, draws, fades, pulls, hooks, slices and, yes, shanks. Using Foresight Sports’ GCQuad launch monitor, we can measure numerous metrics from ball speed, spin rate, height, attack angle, and more.

The freewheeling wrist mechanism mirrors the movement of the wrist hinge and the opening and closing of the clubface throughout the swing. The robot is powered by a servo motor that accelerates the club in the exact same fashion that a real golfer does.

The applications for our purposes—to test those common questions golfers have always wondered about—are plentiful. We can test how the ball behaves under different conditions, the cost of certain misses over others, even the changes between a driving range environment and real one.

With each test, the robot will hit numerous shots for each variable that we’re testing. Often, we test at different swing speeds to see if the data changes for different levels of player.

The results are the most comprehensive and definitive in our MythBusters series. Stay tuned as we bring you results from all of these tests and more. Have something you'd like us to test with the golf robot? Shoot us a note here.